Britannia
Standard Note: 4660
Last updated: 21 May 2008
Author:
Timothy Edmonds
Business & Transport Section
This note gives some background to press reports to the effect that none of the new coins in
a newly redesigned set of coins will show Britannia on the reverse side.
Contents
A.
History: nation and goddess
2
B.
Britannia & the coinage
3
C.
Find the Lady
3
D.
The new designs
5
Standard Notes are compiled for the benefit of Members of Parliament and their personal staff.
Authors are available to discuss the contents of these papers with Members and their staff but cannot
advise others.
A.
History: nation and goddess
The Wikipedia entry for Britannia highlights its long, and sometimes contested, association with the
state and its organs:
The Britannias was the original Latin name the Roman Empire gave to the British
Isles, consisting of Albion, Hibernia and many smaller islands, originating from a
reference from Pytheas of Massilia (Marseilles) in around 300 BC to the Pretanic (or
Britannic) Islands. Deriving from Pretannia, Diodorus’s Greek rendering of the
indigenous name pretani, Britannia became the preferred Roman term for the island
of Great Britain, and in particular the Roman province of Britain which extended north
as far as Hadrian’s Wall. Britannia was personified as a Goddess by the Romans,
and more recently, has become a figure of national personification of the UK.
The Romans originally described the group of islands off north-west Europe as the
Britanniae, consisting of Albion (Britain), Hibernia (Ireland) and many smaller islands.
Over time, Albion came to be known as Britannia, and the name for the group was
subsequently dropped.
[…]
There was a celtic goddess called Brigid who is one of the many sources of the
personification of Britain. The Emperor Claudius paid a visit while Britain was being
conquered and was honoured with the agnomen Britannicus as if he were the
conqueror, but Britannia remained a place, not a female personification of the land,
until she appeared on coins issued under Hadrian, which introduced a female figure
labelled BRITANNIA.
Britannia was soon personified as a goddess. Early portraits of the goddess depict
Britannia as a beautiful young woman, wearing the helmet of a Centurion, and
wrapped in a white garment with her right breast exposed. She is usually shown
seated on a rock, holding a spear, and with a spiked shield propped beside her.
Sometimes she holds a standard and leans on the shield.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, variations on the term appear in the titles of the
9th century historia Britonum and the 12th century Historia Regum Britanniae which
became tremendously popular during the Middle Ages.
It gained new symbolic meaning with the rise of British influence, and later the British
Empire, which at its height ruled a quarter of the world's population and landmass.
With the death of Queen Elizabeth 1 came the succession of her Scottish cousin,
James VI of Scotland to the English throne. He became James I of England, and so
brought under his personal rule the Kingdoms of England (and the dominion of
Wales), Ireland and Scotland. On 20 October 1604 King James proclaimed himself as
"King of Great Brittaine, France and Ireland", a title that continued to be used by
many of his successors. With the constitutional unification of England and Scotland in
1707 and then with Ireland in 1800 Britannia became an increasingly important
symbol and a strong rallying point among Britons.
British power, which depended on a liberal political system and the supremacy of the
navy, lent these attributes to the image of Britannia. By the time of Queen Victoria,
Britannia had been renewed. Still depicted as a young woman with brown or golden
hair, she kept her Corinthian helmet and her white robes, but now she held
Poseidon’s three-pronged trident and often stood in the ocean, representing British
naval power. She also usually held or stood beside a Greek hoplite shield, which
2
sported the British Union flag: also at her feet was often the British Lion, the national
animal of England which also appears on the Arms of Scotland—and a representative
of God. Another change was that she was no longer bare breasted, due to the
modesty of Victorian society.1
B.
Britannia & the coinage
Considerable detail about the tradition of Britannia appearing on British coins is published by
a coin and Bullion company called Chard.2 They note that the Roman emperor Claudius
was given the name Britannicus following the successful invasion of Britain in 43AD. This
name was inscribed on triumphal architecture in Rome on his return and this was
reproduced on several coins of the time. These were Roman coins, although some have
been found in Britain, indicating their usage even in the furthest outposts of the then Empire.
Britannia first appeared on a truly British coin when she (Britannia had occasionally been
male in Roman times but was now modelled on the Duchess of Richmond – a society beauty
and attachment to the court of Charles II) appeared on the reverse side of the farthing in
1672, followed by the halfpenny later the same year. According to the Royal Mint the familiar
seated figure was “Used as a political symbol of the war with the Dutch, her olive branch
represented a desire for peace above conflict”.3 She then appeared on the penny coin
between 1797 and 1970 and on the 50 pence coin since 1969.
C.
Find the Lady
Current interest in Britannia’s status has been aroused by newspaper articles such as this
one from the Daily Mail which provided the following:
EVER since she appeared on a farthing in the reign of Charles II more than 300 years
ago, the image of Britannia sitting on her rock wearing her Greek helmet and flowing
classical robes, holding her trident with a lion at her feet has made a continuous
appearance on British coins. But now the Royal Mint has confirmed that, before he
left the Treasury for Number 10, Gordon Brown personally approved a new set of
coins from which she has been entirely removed.
How profoundly depressing. No other name is more redolent of our country. No
symbol, other than the Union Flag, better sums up these islands.
Yet we are told that under the most significant overhaul of coinage since
decimalisation, she is to be replaced with a representation of modern Britain,
whatever that may be.
[…]
She has been a small but charming and even romantic part of our way of life for so
long that the banishment of her graceful female form seems to be a pointless and
1
2
3
Britannia, Wikipedia, ret’d 28 February 2008,
Chard (1964) Limited
Royal Mint press release; 5 March 2008
3
expensive act of vandalism, another small aspect of the brutalisation of today's
Britain.
It seems not to matter that, through centuries of British coinage, she has been
unfailingly adaptable for her various masters -- she turned to face right instead of left
for George IV's currency and even stood up for the florin coin of Edward VII. Even
though we have six denominations of coins, from the one penny to the 50 pence
piece, it seems not one of them has a place for her in Gordon Brown's Britain.
While the Prime Minister wraps himself in the Union Flag, with proclamations of his
love of country, he quietly ditches the very symbol that has represented Britain's past
and present glory for longer than any other.
Because, although Britannia has been continuously on our coins since that first
Britannia farthing was minted in 1672, she has personified the proud history of these
islands since long before the invention of the Union Flag with which her shield is
emblazoned.
[…]
Britannia reminds us of the best of Britain: she is gentle, generous, yet also strong.
Foreigners have nothing to fear from Britannia, or the lion at her feet, if they do not
rouse her. Custom, habit, tradition, the past, pride and, if necessary, military
strength: Britannia stands for much in our world that should be as important today as
they were in Stuart times.
Gordon Brown was shortsighted as well as unchivalrous to consign Britannia to the
Royal Mint smelting plants. Let's hope one day that she -- and the values for which
she stands -- will return.4
The Royal Mint, responsible for the production, design and issuance of all coinage in this
country, published a note explaining the process by which the new designs on the coins
were chosen.
The definitive reverse designs of the coins currently in circulation, with the exception
of the 20p, the £1 coin and the £2 coin (which were introduced in 1982, 1983 and
1988 respectively) were created by Christopher Ironside in preparation for
decimalisation in 1971. The first of the new decimal coins, the 5p and 10p, were
introduced in April 1968 and corresponded exactly in size and value to the shillings
and florins.
It has, therefore, been almost 40 years since the current reverse designs were first
introduced. This is an unusually long period and it would be necessary to go back as
far as 1887 to find a series of reverses which has lasted as long.
A public competition to obtain new designs was announced in August 2005 with the
specific intention of generating public interest. The competition was open to members
of the public who competed alongside specially invited artists and the Royal Mint
engraving department.
4
Daily Mail, 29 January 2008
4
The design brief gave would-be designers a ‘free hand’. However, as heraldry has
been an important element in the design of British coins for centuries, entrants were
encouraged to look at interpreting heraldry in an ‘imaginative and creative way’. The
brief also suggested that they might like to consider themes to represent Britain, such
as flora or fauna, geographic features, social, political or cultural achievements or
British institutions.
Over 4000 designs were received, the highest response to any public competition to
redesign the United Kingdom coinage, including that organised at the time of
decimalisation. To ensure impartiality it was requested that no initials or identifying
marks were included on the drawings. All designs were considered at length by the
Royal Mint Advisory Committee on the Design of Coins, Medals, Seals and
Decorations before making a recommendation. The Committee was established in
1922 with the purpose of raising the standard of numismatic art in the United
Kingdom. The Committee meets under the chairmanship of Professor Sir Christopher
Frayling.
The £1 coin and £2 coin were initially not included in the brief as these are relatively
new additions to the UK’s coinage. However, the £1 was later added to complete the
winning set of designs that were submitted.
The winning designs for the reverse side of seven of the United Kingdom's circulating
coins - from the 1p to the £1 coin - will be announced in early Spring. The designs
take a traditional theme that reflects the nation's rich heritage, including our historic
national and heraldic emblems, and treats it in an innovative and contemporary way.
There are no plans to remove the existing Britannia design 50p coins from circulation
- of which there are an estimated 806 million pieces. 5
It should be pointed out that since 1992 Britannia ceased to be a constant on all 50 pence pieces due
to the use of the reverse of the 50p coin for various commemorative designs. These have included,
UK Presidencies of the Council of Ministers and the EU; D-Day Anniversary; Scout Association
Centenary; National Libraries Act; the NHS; the four minute mile; the suffragette movement; Samuel
Johnson’s Dictionary and the Victoria Cross.
D.
The new designs
The new designs were officially revealed on 2 April 2008. Collectively they form the Royal
Coat of Arms, separate coins utilising a portion of the whole. Announcing the coins the
Royal Mint stated that:
The Shield of the Royal Arms has been given a contemporary treatment and its whole
has been cleverly split among all six denominations from the 1p to the 50p, with the
£1 coin displaying the heraldic element in its entirety. This is the first time that a
single design has been used across a range of United Kingdom coins.
The new designs will enter circulation gradually throughout the year. It is normal
practice for banks to order coins from the Royal Mint to satisfy public demand, which
fluctuates over the course of the year. The current coin designs will remain in
circulation and as legal tender for the foreseeable future.
5
Royal Mint Briefing Note 11 March 2008
5
The diagram below illustrates this:
6